


sure fire winners

by erdah



Category: Borderlands
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Drabble, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-03
Updated: 2015-09-05
Packaged: 2018-04-18 19:02:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4716992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/erdah/pseuds/erdah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some fairly connected drabbles about Rhys the new kid and Handsome Jack, notorious douchey senior.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. august heat is a killer

**Author's Note:**

> Heyo, all! Uh, this is my first fanfic, like, ever. And of course I go for the fandom I'm just about the least familiar with; I brain good sometimes. Let me know what you think, if you want more? also fic title is from an adam lambert song of the same name. (i think it fits jack to a tee.) chapter titles are just things i'm thinking of at the moment.

Rhys can’t sleep, the night before before his first day school. Of course he _remembers_ what going to public school was like, and interacting with kids his age. He just lost his arm and his eye, he didn’t grow up, like, a complete hermit. But looking in on his friends’ villages in Animal Crossing and making origami at the lunch table to impress them in middle school is a far cry away from starting sophomore year of high school, friendless.

In a new town, even.

His first impression of Pandora was heat. Choking heat that makes it hard to breathe; makes him grateful for his basement level room. His second is rust, and--well, if a town could _feel_ like decay, that’s Pandora. His family lives in one of the nicer neighborhoods, but the whole place seems… aged. Falling apart. Scads of men in wifebeaters or less walk around town in the middle of the day, lips thinned and eyes hard with hunger. _Bums_ , Rhys’s father scoffs, _too lazy to go out and get a job. You work hard, Rhys. Don’t you expect anything..._ An awkward pause, and then his father coughs, _just given to you_.

As if his father is the one who got them this nice, faux-Victorian house. That was all Rhys’s mother, and he is so glad to have inherited her quick mind and clever hands as well as her thick hair and fine-boned features.

It was his mother who spent sleepless nights researching options and talking him through the choices for experimental treatments, for both his arm and his eye, and then moved mountains to get him into the programs. Physically moved them closer to the best hospital they could afford, too.

But so much of the necessity for that is over, and now here Rhys is, stomach tied in knots and--he checks his phone--well, five or so hours til his first day of school at Dahl High. Joy.

\-------

Stanton Dahl High School--Dahl High--is rated very well on just about every national scale. Its classes and extracurriculars are innovative and engaging. Its teachers are top-tier graduates from very well respected teaching programs. It is also a full hour and twenty minutes drive from Pandora, so Rhys may have (read: definitely) over-estimated how much time he had for sleep last night.

He stumbles off the bus, groggy and loose-limbed from lack of sleep. Mistake. Clanging his metal arm against the side of the bus creates one hell of a noise; Rhys can feel his cheeks filling with dull red warmth, but when he looks through his eyelashes no one in the small courtyard in front of the school seems to have done more than glance his way. It probably helps that despite the unholy heat, Rhys opted for a long sleeved shirt for today. Only the tips of his fingers poke out beyond the cuffs.

Heading for the least occupied pocket of space, Rhys winds up leaning awkwardly against a pristine gunmetal column, happy for even this slight shade. He wedges his fingers in his pockets, decides that looks dumb, crosses his arms, feels like a tool, and so just ends up gripping the straps of his backpack. No one approaches; they all seem happy enough in their established cliques, and Rhys is already too exhausted to really put forward an effort into maintaining eye contact with anybody.

Fortunately, the bell rings before too long, and the doors are opened to let everyone stream in. Unfortunately, what had, in the open space outdoors, been a loud but comfortable susurration becomes a cacophony of shrieks and laughter and coos and _noise_ that Rhys is no longer accustomed to, being used to the orderly chatter and beeps of the hospital and the quiet of home. He flinches backwards.

Into a very solid chest.

“Oh! I, uh,” Rhys stutters, and half turns towards whoever he bumped into--and looks up. Not far up, but ever since his first painful growth spurt at age twelve that never seems to have stopped, Rhys hasn’t really had to look up at anybody. It’s slightly disorienting--what’s even more so is who looks back at him.

Tall, of course, and slender, like Rhys, unlike Rhys he looks like he’s got a bit more breadth in his shoulders; room to grow. Also unlike Rhys, the boy--man?--no, boy, probably--looks so comfortable in his skin, if slightly irritated. He narrows mismatched eyes and cocks an eyebrow at Rhys, so: growing more irritated.

“Right! I, um, I’m sorry, haha, I just--” Rhys starts to say, and it’s honestly a blessing to be cut off.

“Nope, nu-uh, poodle. I do not give a single tin shit why you jumped like the world’s most high strung cat at the phenomenon of doors opening. Just get the hell out of my way, there we go, great, awesome, let’s never ever talk again, it’ll be magical.” And with a lazy flap of one long fingered hand, he’s gone.

Rhys gapes after him, then buries his head in his flesh hand. His first day is going _fantastic._


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> rhys calm down ur heartboner is showing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING for brief, casual classism and ableism!!! also, this is going to be VERY nonlinear; at some point i'll be going back to when they first meet-meet, but i'm still working out the logistics and also i am a hellish combination of stressed, overworked, and lazy, so updates are never going to be regular, and chapters are always going to be short.

It’s nearly Winter Break, and they’re hanging out in Jack’s room when Rhys spots it. He’s sprawled across Jack’s deep red duvet, listening to Jack talk his way through an argument in their paper--mostly tuning him out, if he’s honest--and a photograph catches his eye.

“Oh my god, are you a theatre kid? What play is this??” Rhys quickly flops over to the dresser--the bed is too comfy to leave--and snags the little framed square.

It’s Jack, in that makeup that makes everyone look sort of unreal, grinning huge and wild. He has his arm around Nisha, who’s in all black and has a headset curving around ear. She’s looking at Jack, smiling small and fond.

“Midsummer Night’s Dream, pumpkin. I rocked the faces off of people, back when I was into theatre. I’m a goddamn triple threat. I can act, I can sing, and I look amazing.” Jack says, having rolled his chair over to the bed and sprawled next to Rhys, looking over his shoulder at the photo. He’s plastered himself to Rhys’s side, so close Rhys can feel his breath on his neck. He can feel his cheeks heating up.

“I, uh, I don’t think that’s what a ‘triple threat’ traditionally is. I’m pretty sure it’s act, sing, and dance.” Rhys can’t help but point out.

“Oh? Well then I am a quadruple threat, that’s even better.” Jack crows, flipping onto his back and putting some space between them. Rhys breathes a little easier.

“Who were you even playing? Were you, uh,” and here, Rhys is scrambling to remember anyone in that play, “...Puck?” That doesn’t seem right. From what little he remembers about the movie, Puck had been all in greens, and the Jack in the picture is in a gauzy, sparkly black sleeveless shirt, and fake black tattoos of wolves and skulls and other slightly morbid stuff twisting over his arms. He looks--well, hot, but also not like Rhys remembers Puck looking.

Jack snorts. “Nahh. I was Oberon. King of the faeries. All-around badass.” Kind of a superdouche, Rhys completes mentally, the movie’s plot starting to come back to him.

“Do you still do theatre? You weren’t in the fall production, are you waiting to do the musical in spring? Is, uh, is Nisha still part of stage crew?” He stops abruptly.

Though his facial expression hasn’t changed, there is an unmistakable tension running through Jack. At that question, he cracks a grin. It isn’t a nice one.

“Ha! Nisha’s running that shit now, she made stage manager the very next show and they should be thanking their lucky goddam stars for it.” Jack says. “And no, kitten, I decided to wait til I’m out of this dump and at college to get back into acting, although hell, maybe I’ll try directing, I’ve learned from Moxxi what not to do so well.” He sneers.

Rhys’s eyes go wide, “Mrs. Hodunk? You, uh, you got into a fight with her?” Rhys can’t imagine--well, okay, this is Jack, but Mrs. Hodunk, despite her slightly goofy last name and frankly flamboyant makeup, seems so calm and unruffled, all the time.

“We had,” Jack says crisply, “artistic differences.”

“Oh? What-what did she want you to do?” Rhys says, feeling loyal suddenly, at the faint vulnerability he can see in Jack’s eyes; hurt that isn’t quite old enough to get bitter.

Caught wrong footed at the phrasing of the question, Jack stutters for maybe the first time Rhys has ever known him. “I, she, she kept having me play villains. Said I was perfect for them.” He sounds so bewildered, and it makes something in Rhys’s chest hurt. “I kept trying out for the hero, and she never would let me have it.”

“That’s crazy! You would be such an awesome hero, Jack, she’s nuts.” Rhys exclaims hotly.

“Thanks, sweetheart. I’ve always thought so, too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh jack, moxxi's got your number, babe
> 
> nisha is going to be around, and i kind of maybe see this going either: ot3 route, or jack with rhys as well as jack with nisha, but i was never just going to erase her or pretend she and jack were never a thing and i figure she finds rhys adorable, like a baby ferret. more on that later!

**Author's Note:**

> I decided to make the high school Dahl because Jack haaaaates it there; and because I'm thinking into the future and also because Stanton Dahl sounds just boring enough to be a real high school. :p


End file.
